As a sort-of genealogist, I run across facts and statements that can give you a different outlook on life.

Take for instance this black genealogist, George Smith. He became interested in his family history several years ago when he was listening to Alex Haley speak. Most people were there to hear how he got Malcolm X to tell Haley his story, which later became a bestselling autobigraphy. Instead, listeners were amazed to hear Haley talk about the new book he was working on, something about tracing his family all the way back to Africa -- "Roots."

Then George Smith wrote about his search for HIS roots. He focused on his mom's side, the Artis family. His great-grandfather was once a pastor of a black church in Mattoon, Illinois, where I used to be pastor. But he was surprised that he could go back further than that.

Then he wrote this: "This new information about the earliest Artis changed my perception of how far back my family had existed." Really? Did, perhaps, your family suddenly pop up out of thin air around the year 1870? I've talked to several people who echo Smith, who focus on only one or two in their family, who are surprised by how large their REAL family could be, and is.

Think about it. You may not know the names of, say, your great-great grandparents. But that doesn't mean they didn't exist, that they were not a part of your family! In fact, when you think about it, each one of us is a product of an amazing number of moms and dads. Go back just 5 generations -- your parents, your grandparents, your great-grandparents, your great-great grandparents, and your great-great-great grandparents -- and, with those thirty-two great-great-grandparents, you have thrity-two different families that you are descended from. And when you go back five more generations (which takes you just to about the year 1700), and you keep multiplying by two each generation, you have 1,024 families that you are descended from.

That's 1,024 different family stories. 1,024 different family situations. 1,024 different ethnic backgrounds. 1,024 different people. And 512 different love stories.

We are not only reliant upon these love stories for, ultimately, our births. We are equally reliant upon, in most cases, their courage, their care, and their love -- and yet most of our ancestors are people we couldn't possibly have known.

The writer of Hebrews mused about this when it came to the ancestors of our faith. In chapter eleven of Hebrews we read about Abraham and Sarah, believing they could have children when it was physically impossible. We read about the faith of Moses, of Joshua at Jericho, of Rahab the harlot, of Gideon, Samson, David, Samuel, and the prophets.

Then Hebrews concludes, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us." (Heb. 12:1) Not only in genealogy do we descend from "a great cloud" of people; we also descend in faith from a great cloud of spiritual mothers and father, grandmothers and grandfathers, some we have never met -- and yet they can be people that inspire us to "run with perseverance."

Perhaps a certain parent or pastor or teacher or friend influenced you to believe, to commit more fully to following Christ. Who influenced him or her? And who influenced then THAT person? And on and on it goes. It makes me want to praise God for such a huge blessing, laid out for me many years before I was born! And it inspires me, like I hope it inspires you, to follow the call of Hebrews 12:1, which goes on into verse two: "and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith."

Every now and then some wise guy tells me that genealogy is a waste of time because, "we all descend from Adam and Eve." Though that is true, I don't take the blessing of that for granted. In the same way, all of our faiths "descend" from the New Adam, from Jesus Christ; He is the root of our family tree of faith; He is the one we are to "look to." He started the ball rolling that leads to our salvation.

David Hewitt